- chapter 28: Etruscan religious rituals –
2), the triangular elements on the upper surface of the low altar may be interpreted as stylized
fl ames. Cf., also Rafanelli 2004, H 2.B.179.
118 Maggiani 1989: 1557 ff. pls 1–3; Roncalli 1991: 124 ff.; de Grummond 2006: 33–39.
119 Rafanelli 2004, III.E.2.164–165.
120 ET LL VIII, 17–18. Rafanelli 2004, III.A.1.140, n. 21; III.H.2.a.178–179.
121 Rix 1997: 391–398.
122 Prosdocimi 1984.
123 See for example that of the ritual calendar of the Island of Kos (Herzog 1928, in Abh. Akad.
Berlin, 6).
124 Rafanelli 2004, III.H.1.177.
125 Cf., for example, the carnelian scarab Furtwangler n. 33 (LIMC VIII Turms, n. 8); see also
Donati 2004, III.B.3.147–148.
126 The mixture of elements of Apollo and Dionysiac cults, in this case, on one side recognizable
in the presence of the laurel crown on the altar, and, perhaps, in the armlet with bullae on
the arm of the person sacrifi cing, and on the other, in the possible association of the animal
victim with the nebris (fawnskin), characteristic attribute of Maenads, is on the other hand not
uncommon in Etruscan ritual representations. (Rafanelli 2010: 5).
127 The provenance of the vase from Vulci, a city permeated, ever since the fi fth century bc,
with mystery beliefs in which, in a sense, Dionysiac beliefs prevailed, could indicate that the
recipient of the offering was to be Fufl uns Pachie, to whom the frieze of ivy leaves would be
appropriate that adorns the shoulder of the little vase, framing and acclimatizing the fi gured
scene, as does the headband, held in the left hand of the person standing to the right of the
altar, an attribute that marks the initiates of the mystery cult of Dionysos (see Colonna 1991:
124).
128 Cf., among others, the mythological representations of the purifi cation of Orestes by means of
the blood of a piglet whose throat is slit, like that shown on the back of the Etruscan mirror.
Donati 2004, III.B.9.161, where Apollo himself (Aplu) sacrifi ces the piglet over the head of
Urste in the presence of Metua and Vanth; for the scene on the same mirror see also Ambrosini:
230, 14.
129 Donati 2004, III.B.9.160.
130 Del Chiaro 1974a, n. 36, p. 45, Fig. 34; Del Chiaro 1974b.
131 Donati 2004, III.B.9.162.
132 Donati 2004, III.B.7.123; Rafanelli 2004, III.E.2a, 220; Donati 2004, III.B.1.52.
133 Krauskopf 2006: 66 ff.
134 Cf. Warden 2009b: 301 ff., where the scholar stresses the concept of the blood sacrifi ce as a
means of communication and osmosis between human and animal, from which necessarily
follows the extreme importance attributed by the Etruscans to the cult of the deceased
ancestors, celebrated and divinized by means of particular bloody sacrifi cial rites (see supra,
note 66).
135 Cf. Colonna 1991: 117 ff.
136 Cf. Maggiani 2012: 408, where the scholar stops to examine the passage of Seneca in which
the Roman philosopher emphasized the difference between the Etruscans and the Greeks and
Latins, reiterating the assumption that the Etruscans attributed to the gods themselves the
will to determine phenomena with the intention of communicating to men, through them,
their intentions, while the Greeks and Latins maintained that the phenomena happened
because the conditions had been created that made them occur.
137 Cf. N. T. de Grummond “Selected Latin and Greek Literary Sources” in de Grummond and
Simon 2006, Appendix B, no. VIII.1.
138 Cf. Censorinus, De Die natali, 14.15, which surveys the life cycle of man in twelve periods of
seven years (hebdomades), and in ten saecula the existence of the Etruscan nomen (cf. Maggiani
1984: 150).